The post Why We Don’t Give appeared first on Jewcy.

More than anything, talking was good for getting the anger out. Talking was constructive. Communication was good. Even when it was ugly.

And so I learned to confront people. To say, “I’m angry at you,” or “You did something that hurt my feelings and it really messed me up,” or “You’re a total douchebag, you total douchebag.”

But the trick with talking, as opposed to splatter art or slamdancing, was that you actually had to know who you were angry at. You had to be able to locate the object of your anger, figuratively and literally. You needed a door to knock on. Someone to yell at.

This week, reading Shalom Auslander’s new memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, I found myself thinking about anger. About talking when you’re angry. And about talking to God, who is the object of Auslander’s anger.

See—this weird and powerful book, is basically just 310 pages of anger. 310 pages of ranting. 310 pages of Auslander screaming over and over again, “You’re a total douchebag, you total douchebag!” To God.

Auslander hates him more than I’ve ever hated anything. And he’s been putting off telling God that, until now. He’s been afraid to tell him. Afraid of God’s reaction. God’s wrath. In very concrete ways, Auslander has (if we are to believe his book) been afraid of God’s punishment. Pillars of salt and plagues of locusts. Auslander has been afraid God would kill his wife. Ruin his career.

But here’s the trick—in order to hate something you have to really believe in that something. You can’t hate a vague memory. You can’t hate an amorphous consideration. Auslander hates God because he knows God.

Which is pretty amazing to read about—such hatred. Hatred as proof of true belief. Hatred directed at the sky, executed without a shiny happy veneer. Hatred without a lesson.

But why so much hate?

Well, Auslander grew up a true believer with a fucked up life. With an alcoholic dad and a doormat mom. With an overwhelming sexual urge, a critical mind, and a religious environment that could accept neither.

And what does one do when one truly believes that everything in the universe is controlled by the omnipresent hand of HaShem, but that the universe is totally chaotic? How could one not, under such circumstances, be angry at God? How could one not see God as some kind of vindictive, manipulative bastard?

Okay, so Auslander’s mad. He hates God. He fights God at every step. He attempts to manipulate God into killing his raging dad by eating trayf. Because he has been given to understand that “until the age of thirteen all of a boy’s sins are ascribed to his father.” Then he tries to run away from God, from his family, his orthodox world.

And I guess we’re supposed to feel bad for Auslander. That he’s been so horrendously messed up by his family and the orthodoxy that he’s still making deals with God as an adult. That he’s superstitious to the core, so afraid of God he’s certain that if he dares to be happy, God will do something terrible to him, maybe deform his unborn child.

But here’s the trick—I don’t feel bad for him. Not really. I feel something else. I feel moved by his story, compelled, hungry for more. Which is to say that I feel jealous. Because I want a God too. I want to believe in something this much. I want someone to yell at.

When I was a kid—growing up with a kind of pluralistic, humanistic, academic Judaism, with a vague sort of “God is the force for good in everything and all gods are real” religion—there were no absolutes. No concrete belief systems. No real community. And so all I wanted in the world was to be an orthodox Jew or an Amish person. Because it seemed like it would be reassuring, to have specific rules to follow.

Heaven. Hell. Eat this. Don’t eat this. That guy is bad and you’re right all the time as long as you do what I say. I wanted there to be rules. And also, I was angry. Maybe as angry as Auslander.

I was angry because I had epilepsy and was being constantly overmedicated for my condition, to the point of illness. And I was angry that when they took pictures of my epileptic brain they found a tumor. I was angry that my mom and dad split up, and that we had to move. I had reasons to be angry, but I didn’t have anyone to blame, anyone to yell at. I had no rules to break that would give me any power or control. Nothing to bring me into a dialogue about all the ways I was angry. I had myself and my anger, and I got lost in each of them, hungry for some kind of relief, explanation, hope.

So I don’t think Auslander realizes how lucky he is. Where he has a core of rage and anger, I have something else. A hole. An empty space. Where God would be. And that hurts too.

I keep thinking about this. And what I arrive at is the thought that Shalom Auslander is the child of an abusive parent—this God of his—and he is MAD. So he’s telling all of us about how mad he is. He’s describing each beating, each time his God slammed his head against the bathroom sink. Each time his God forgot to feed him dinner. And it’s horrible—this story of his—horrible and fascinating and true.

But if he’s the abused child, I’m the orphan. Sitting alone and listening. Knowing that the abuse he’s describing is terrible and wrong, but at the same time, feeling sorry for myself.

“Well at least you have a dad!”

Because it sounds like some kind of a foundation, however messed up. It sounds like Auslander knows something, truly believes in something.

Which is why I think this book is so powerful. Because most gods aren’t gods I can understand. I’m too far removed from such belief, from such lovely faith. I’m too much an orphan to believe in the shiny happy veneer of a perfect parent—the god of Jesus Loves Me and Our Father Who Art and Who Brought You Out of Egypt to Be Your God.

But this god. The god of therapy and manipulation and neglect and irony. This faith of cynicism and resentment. This sounds like something I can understand. At least a little bit.

And that’s the funny thing. The punchline. That this book—which is so angry, so iconoclastic—has convinced me of something, touched me in a small way. Made a believer of me, if only for a few hours or days. The punchline is that this heretical book, this biography of one man’s attempted recovery from faith, has performed a kind of mission for me, brought me a little bit of god.

And although I’m not sure that’s what Shalom Auslander wanted, it might just be what his God wanted.

Baruch haShem?

The post Why I’m Jealous of Shalom Auslander’s Horrible God appeared first on Jewcy.

Statements from Jewish leaders about his death were duly respectful of a man who loved Israel, but were qualified also by his embrace of values that alienated most American Jews.

This is something I will never never understand.  How thinking Jewish people can in any way stand behind someone like this.  How Israel, or any other single issue, can be important enough to trump our other concerns. Like not getting into bed with racist homophobic misogynists.

Here's a lovely quote from Mort Klein (leader of the Zionist Organization of America):

"Jews should have appreciated his virtually unconditional support more than we did," Klein said. "We should also have appreciated that his deep support for Israel came from strong belief in the Torah, in the Bible."

Okay… NO!  the support of evangelical Christianity for Israel does NOT come from a strong belief in the Torah.  It comes from a strong belief in the Christian Bible, which condemns us to Hell and views Israel as a necesary ingredient in the ultimate destruction of all us heathens.  If the 5 books of Moses happen to be a re-translated part of the book, so what?  That fact, and our shared interest in Israel does NOT make for a Judeo-Christian America.  Does not make us friends.

I feel strongly that my (not so clean and happy) neighborhood should be a clean and happy place.  The  awful investor who owns the vacant house next to mine, and wants to flip it for profit, feels strongly that this neighborhood needs to "transition faster" too.  But why we feel these things, and how we live our lives sets us apart. And no shared desire for a coffee shop around the corner will make us friends.

Jerry Falwell is dead. And while I don't rejoice in anyone's death, I can't mourn this man.  He thought that the antichrist (ANTICHRIST) was a Jewish man.  He thought AIDS was "the wrath of a just God". 

He liked Israel.  He stood for pretty much everything I hate.  He died.

RIP

The post No Tears for Jerry appeared first on Jewcy.

While the kids played and we tried to keep them from falling to their deaths, Naomi told me a little about her job, and I thought it sounded super-cool, and when I discovered they had a blog, JSPOT, I wanted to make sure you knew about it!

 Here's a little tidbit, from an article about the Sabbath:

Observing the Sabbath is the “climax of living” because refraining from working one day a week reminds us that we are more than our job title, our incomes or other labels attached to us based on what we do. For one day a week, it dissolves the hierarchies that make some of us feel more deserving than others and others of us feel less so.

Of course, I'm not sure we all make use of the Sabbath in this way, but I love the idea of it, and think JSPOT has a lot to say!

And the blog also links this article about Shavuot and Immigration Reform.

Pretty vital issues, rooted deeply in Jewish ideas.

I find it interesting that JSPOT has taken as its mission an avoidance of conversation about Israel:

Our focus is on domestic issues only; no foreign policy, no Middle East, no Israel. We hope to direct some attention to the problems faced by those living in the United States without access to quality health care, housing, education, childcare, or a clean environment; those who work for low-wages, in unstable jobs, or are unemployed; those who struggle against discrimination and bigotry; those who are victims of violence and abuse. We hope to celebrate and scrutinize the efforts to address these problems; to offer varied perspectives and new ideas.

I know many people who feel that Israel IS the Jewish political agenda, and I think those people might take issue with JSPOT.  But I like this approach.  I feel that these issues of social justice are critical for us, as Jews, to address. And Israel tends to divide us, when we might be brought together around a topic like education of healthcare.

The post Jewish Politics Beyond Israel appeared first on Jewcy.

Although I've never studied Jabes in any formal way, and it makes me nervous to stumble into the language of Postmodernism…

Derrida called the question ‘our freedom’ from God, which is what allows us to speak and to write, making Jabes’s intractable Book of Questions ‘a book on the book.’

And a lot of people read Jabes' with a lens of Postmodernism.  But Jabes was also very much a Jew and a theologian, and I find the bridge he builds between God (with a special interest in Kabbalah) and Postmodern Poetics to be really really useful.  He knew:

"The name of God is the juxtaposition of all the words in the language, Each word is but a detached fragment of that name"

But he knew this as both a Jew and a poet.

This Kabbalistic idea means that breaking open words and recombining their letters is neither just fun nor impious. It is not even just the Kabbalistic tradition of "traveling inside the word." (12) For Edmond Jabes, this method "permits a rediscovery, a rereading of the word. One opens a word as one opens a book: it is the same gesture" (DB 95). More, it is creation in the sense of enacting the possible. The motor of this process becomes, as Joseph Guglielmi has realized, the single letter. It at the same time interprets and creates

And as both a  poet and a Jew I find his work to be inspiring and complicated.  Which is a good thing. I like the marriage of inspiration and complication.  I'm a beleiver in the question.

Some words:

The post If You Haven’t Read Jabes appeared first on Jewcy.

I could blame this decision on the baby I'm about to have, or on the book deadline I'm racing… but the truth is that I just feel I'm running out of things to say. And I feel there are loads of you with lots of wonderful things to say…

And over the past 7 months, I've come to respect and love this community (even some of the anonymous crazies), so the last thing I want to do is let you down. I'd hate to start totally "phoning in" all my blog posts, just to avoid quitting.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, but I'm a terrible secret-keeper. And sitting here, searching for something to talk about (Shavuot? the Jews of Baltimore? The fact that they're tearing down Shabbtai Zvi's house?) I wanted to get this out of the way:

Goodbye!

I think that Faithhacker is an amazing thing. I think that Jewcy is doing something really important– creating a space that brings together different kinds of Jews for real dialogue. I think that this is a special place on the web, an honest but (usually) respectful forum. It can be surprising, iconoclastic, human. It reaches back to for a tradition, but asks blunt questions rooted in an altogether contemporary mindset.

I'll miss it. And you.

And so of course I'll still be lurking about here. But I can't think of 40 story ideas a month anymore… and there are many many people who know far more than me, and have fresh new ideas for posts. So it's time for them to take over. "Take it to the next level."

I'll be hanging out, learning from them. And so I'll see you here.

(and now that that's said… I can throw up a few last posts without feeling like a secret-keeper)

The post Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye… appeared first on Jewcy.

Most of us know that Jews today don't engage in Polygamy, and most of us also know that Jews used to engage in lots of Polygamy (about 40 men in the Torah had more than one wife).  King David had eight wives and a bunch of concubines.  Soloman had like, 700 wives!

But until far more recently (if you trust the Jewish Encyclopedia), Jews were okay with a man marrying multiple women (though not so much the other way around):

Permitted according to biblical law, polygamy was practiced throughout the talmudic period and thereafter until the tenth century (Piskei ha-Rosh to Yev. 65a; Sh. Ar., EH 1:9). Already in amoraic times, however, the practice was frowned upon by the sages, who prescribed that polygamy was permissible only if the husband was capable of properly fulfilling his marital duties toward each of his wives

Whoa!  The tenth century?

Just wait… it gets better.  According to Wikipedia, the Torah:

includes a few specific regulations on the practice of polygamy, such as Exodus 21:10, which states that multiple marriages are not to diminish the status of the first wife; Deuteronomy 21:15-17, which states that a man must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hates that son's mother and likes another wife more;[4] and Deuteronomy 17:17, which states that the king shall not have too many wives.^[13] One source of polygamy was the practice of levirate marriage, wherein a man was required to marry and support his deceased brother's widow.

In the modern day, Rabbinic Judaism has essentially outlawed polygamy. Ashkenazi Jews have followed Rabbenu Gershom's ban since the 11th century. Some Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews (particularly those from Yemen and Iran, where polygamy is a social norm) discontinued polygamy much more recently, as they emigrated to countries where it was forbidden. The State of Israel has forbidden polygamous marriages, but instituted provisions for existing polygamous families immigrating from countries where the practice was legal.

Now, the rest of this seems not-so-shocking.  But that last line– I'll admit I'm a little surprised to discover that there are still Jewish polygamous families today. Sadly, I found sites online that use this information to build terribly anti-Semitic arguments about how Israel supports Polygamy as a practice, though I won't link them here.

Want more?

Here's an article discussing whether Polygamy should be legal in Israel…

The post Jews and Polygamy? appeared first on Jewcy.

So after looking up Adam's clothes yesterday, I got to thinking about Adam, and I remembered that I don't really know much about his kids.  I mean, I know the story of Cain and Abel… but was that it?

The answer: NO!  I've found all kind of wacky web-sources that suggest Adam and Eve had like, 50 kids.

But you have to be careful with this kind of online search, because there are so many texts we don't use, that various Christian denominations do.  And since I've never heard of most of these "children of Adam" I'm a little nervous about them.

For instance, Wikipedia tells us:

Only three of Adam's children (Cain, Abel, and Seth) are explicitly named in Genesis, although it does state that there were other sons and daughters as well (Genesis 5:4). In Jubilees, two daughters are named – Azûrâ being the first, and Awân, who was born after Seth, Cain, Abel, nine other sons, and Azûrâ. Jubilees goes on to state that Cain later married Awân and Seth married Azûrâ, thus, accounting for their descendants. However, according to Genesis Rabba and other later sources, either Cain had a twin sister, and Abel had two twin sisters, or Cain had a twin sister named Lebuda, and Abel a twin sister named Qelimath. In the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Cain's twin sister is named Luluwa, and Abel's twin sister is named Aklia.

Aklia?  AKLIA?  Yeah, that just sounds silly.

However, we can't totally ignore all of this… because while Jubilees is NOT part of our canon, it was canonical around the second century BCE, and was included in the midrash.  So it's not like it's a comic book or anything…

Of course, the "other" child of Adam and Eve that we know about it is Seth, who (according to Chabad) "was to become the father of all future generations of man".  He lived to be 912, and fathered a lot of kids, including Enoch.

Not half bad.  But now I'm super-curious about Azura (see the apocrypha above).  Seth's WIFE?

I mean, I thought Cain got to marry some non-sister person too, who was wandering around in the woods East of Eden or something.  Couldn't Seth have found one of those?  Or is that just straight-up Christian addition to the Torah?

Eh, we'll save that for later…

The post How Many Kids Did Adam and Eve Have? appeared first on Jewcy.

Well last night, the God Machine picked on the Mormons.  Which is fine, but then Bee got to talking about the fact that Mormons have something of a racist past (they refused to ordain African Americans until 1978?), which I know little about. But according to the book of Mormon, a descendent of Cain married a son of Ham, and made a whole nasty dark race: 

And I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations

Ummm.  Yeah. That sucks.

We can blame this particular nastiness on the Mormons of course, since the rest of us don't recognize a prophet named Nephi… but here's the trick… Bee mentioned that this particular flavor of racism is rooted in the whole "Curse of Ham" thing.  And that got me up and hunting for dirt. Because I don't think Mormons invented that.

The curse of Ham?

I've always known, vaguely, about the sons of Noah–Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  I've always thought that "Shem" was supposed to be the root for "Semite". But I did NOT know that Ham was cursed, or that he was a black man.  What's up with that?

Well, it would seem that the early Jewish interpretations of a passage in Genesis weren't much better, though we can breathe a sigh of relief that we do NOT have any overt racist dogma in the Torah:

The actual writings of Moses assign no racial characteristics or rankings to Ham, nor do they pronounce a curse on Ham, or blacks. Indeed Moses married a Cushite, one of the reputed descendants of Ham, according to the Biblical narrative (Book of Numbers, Chapter 12). Despite this, a number of early Jewish writers have interpreted the Biblical narrative of Ham in what is deemed to be a racial way. Early Jewish scholars used the Genesis passage, and the idea that the Hamitic people were to be a "servant of servants", to rationalize the Israelite subjugation of Cush's younger brother, Canaan. These scholars, working around the 6th century AD, introduced the idea that Ham was marked by dark skin. From the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b: "Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth]. and Ham was smitten in his skin."{Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108b}

So that's cool. No explicit racism in Genesis.  Something of  a relief. 

Now only if we could clear up the whole "women and gays" thing.

The post The Curse of Ham appeared first on Jewcy.

If you don’t want Jewish kids to shtup before they’re married, don’t lie and tell them that the reason they shouldn’t is because condoms are ineffective. You’re spreading dangerously false information that can actually increase the likelihood of Jewish kids contracting sexually transmitted diseases, which can pose a serious risk to their lives.

If they’re going to have sex — and trust me, they’re going to, whether you like it or not (whereas abstinence education is a proven failure) — you should encourage them to do it safely, otherwise you won’t only be dealing with a problem of promiscuity, but with an even bigger STD problem in the Jewish community than that which already exists.

Furthermore, if you’re serious about fighting intermarriage and promoting Jew-on-Jew coupling, you’re going to have a really hard time doing so when you’re scaring Jewish kids off from being intimate with one another. The Jewish establishment is spending millions annually to encourage Jewish kids to sleep with each other. Michael Steinhardt alone has spent a fortune trying to encourage Jewish kids to jump in the sack.

And he makes some good points… focusing on the insanity of arguing against the use of condoms…

But in a more general sense, I'm just amazed by the stupidity of this "campaign".  Not only are they spreading misinformation about condoms, scaring hell out of kids… but they're also leaning on lame arguments like, "Joseph resisted Mrs. Potiphar, so you can resist the attractions of cooch too". 

Genius!  When I was sixteen, and an insecure bundle of hormones, that would TOTALLY have worked.

I think what bothers me most about this issue is how much it smacks of the evangelical Christian model.  Using bible stories and scare tactics to keep people from having sex, rather than explaining in honest, intelligent, Jewish ways… why it might be better to wait awhile?

Do we want our kids to start wearing teen purity rings too? 

This site also responds to the new freako-teen-website, and does a good job, offering some particularly inane quotes from the OU:

"Sexually active girls are three times more likely to attempt suicede" 

"Over 25% of sexually active teenage girls report they are depressed…"

Yeah, okay.  Okay.  The more I learn about the OU, the more okay I am with my secular Jewish upbringing…

The post Who’s in Bed with the OU? appeared first on Jewcy.